2o6 



NA TURE 



{June 27, 1889 



to him that Mr. Pkimmer's al)ihty has been recognized 

 by the Royal Astronomical Society in their selection of 

 him for a seat on their Council. 



JOHN PERCY, M.D., F.R.S. 



BY the death of Dr. Percy, on the 19th inst , this 

 country has lost a distinguished man, who has greatly 

 influenced its metallurgical progress. 



He was born in 1817, and at an early age entered the 

 Medical School of the University of Edinburgh, where, 

 at twenty-one, he took the degree of M.D. He sub- 

 sequently became Physician to the Queen's Hospital at 

 Birmingham, and the few papers he published on medical 

 subjects show that he would probably have risen to 

 eminence in medicine had it not been for the fact that 

 in the great metallurgical centre of the Midlands his 

 studies were soon diverted to the particular line of work 

 to which his life was ultimately devoted. This is not 

 perhaps surprising when it is remembered that the con- 

 nection between therapeutics and metallurgy has been 

 traditional since the days of Paracelsus and Agricola. 



When we look back at Dr. Percy's career, the remarkable 

 fact stands out that notwithstanding the great importance 

 of metallurgy to this country, with its vast industrial 

 interests, there was no metallurgical treatise worthy of the 

 name until he wrote one ; and, what is stranger still, up to 

 the time when he accepted the chair in the Royal School 

 of Mines, in 1851,, there was no systematic teaching of 

 metallurgy. Dr. Percy found it practised mainly as an 

 empirical art. Sir Henry de la Beche indicated the direc- 

 tion the teaching had to take, and in his inaugural dis- 

 course as Director of the School of Mines, he said, " We 

 still too frequently hear of practical knowledge as if, in a 

 certain sense, it were opposed to a scientific method of 

 accounting for it, and as if experience without scientific 

 knowledge were more trustworthy than the like experience 

 with it." Reference to the pages of the Journal of the 

 Iron and Steel Institute will show that this, the most 

 practical body of men in the world, not only thoroughly 

 recognizes that mere empiricism would be fatal to in- 

 dustrial success, but constantly appeals to science for 

 guidance. This is in great measure owing to Dr. Percy's 

 teaching, and is not the least important of its results. 



Ten years after he began to teach, he published the 

 first volume of his treatise on " Metallurgy," which he 

 dedicated with " sincere respect and affectionate regard" 

 to Faraday. This work, which he calls the " task of his 

 life," has developed into a series of volumes containing 

 3500 octavo pages. One remarkable feature of these 

 books is that almost every woodcut may be regarded as 

 an accurate, though small, mechanical drawing, and it is 

 only measurable drawings of this kind which are of real 

 utility in practice. Treatises such as his naturally em- 

 body descriptions of processes furnished by those actually 

 engaged in conducting the operations — aid which was 

 always most fully acknowledged. The thoroughness of 

 his own research is well shown by the careful digests of 

 monographs, which were gathered from all kinds of 

 sources ; and it is evident that immense pains were 

 bestowed upon the work. Some years ago a foreign 

 friend, himself a laborious and conscientious author, 

 forcibly expressed to the writer his appreciation of Dr. 

 Percy's labours, looking up from one of the volumes and 

 exclaiming, " C est ejiorme ce qii^il a compiled 



It may perhaps be admitted that his intolerance of in- 

 accuracy at times led him to magnify points which now 

 £eem to be somewhat trivial, and he sometimes with- 

 holds the expression of his own opinion when the reader 

 has fairly a right to expect it, and would be grateful for 

 the support of his authority. 



With the notable exception of a process for the extrac- 

 tion of silver from argentiferous ores and residues, he can 



hardly be said to have originated any important metallurgi- 

 cal process ; but his works teem with suggestions, and many 

 improvements in metallurgical practice can be directly 

 traced to his teaching. Such is the case with the practical 

 application of the basic process for eliminating phos- 

 phorus in the Bessemer converter — a process of truly 

 national importance, and one which has been widely 

 adopted in other countries. It may fairly be claimed 

 that during the thirty years he held his chair he trained 

 a body of scientific workers in whose hands the immediate 

 future of metallurgy to a great extent rests. 



Remarkable evidence as to the strength of his in- 

 dividuality is afforded by the fact that those who were 

 admitted to his friendship, and even his students who 

 only saw him in the lecture-room or laboratory, were all 

 singularly attracted to him,!notwithstanding the occasional 

 ruggedness of his manner. The purity of his style and the 

 quaintness of his illustration recall the writings of another 

 doctor, Sir Thomas Browne, making, of course, due allow- 

 ance for the difference of the periods at which they wrote. 

 The subjects he dealt with were very diverse, and it would 

 be interesting to collect his trenchant letters, which ap- 

 peared in the Times, usually over the signature Y. One 

 especially occurs to the writer. Dr. Percy was charged 

 with the superintendence of the ventilation of the Houses 

 of Parliament, and amusingly describes his difficulties in 

 meeting the varied and often contradictory requirements 

 of the members, as to the temperature best suited to their 

 work. He was an honorary member of the Institution of 

 Civil Engineers, and held the office of President of the 

 Iron and Steel Institute in 1885, having received the 

 Bessemer Medal of that Institute in 1877. His artistic 

 skill was considerable, and he possessed a fine collection 

 of water-colour drawings. 



Two days before his death the Prince of Wales 

 awarded him, on the nomination of the Council, the 

 Albert Medal of the Society of Arts. Dr. Percy was still 

 able to appreciate the honour which had been done him, 

 and received the intimation with the characteristic words, 

 almost his last, '' My work is done." 



W. C. ROBERTS-AUSTEN. 



M 



HENRY WILLIAM BRISTOW, F.R.S. 



R. BRISTOW'S death, which we briefly chronicled 

 last week, requires a fuller notice. With him 

 passes away one of the gentlest and most courteous of 

 English geologists — one whose associations connected 

 him with the magnates of geology in the early decades 

 of this century, and whose cieath breaks another of the 

 links that unite us personally with that heroic time. 

 Born in 181 7, he was the only son of Major-General 

 H, Bristow, a distinguished officer, who devoted himself 

 to the cause of Spain, where he died, and received the 

 honours of a pubhc funeral. Mr. Bristow suffered from 

 an inveterate deafness. An old school-fellow, speaking of 

 his boyish days not long ago, remarked that he was as 

 deaf then as he was even late in life. This ailment was 

 undoubtedly a life-long hindrance to him, for it kept him 

 from mingling as freely among his associates, and taking 

 so public a part, as his tastes and abilities would have 

 prompted and fitted him to do. 



When twenty-five years of age, he joined the Geological 

 Survey under Sir Henry De la Beche, and he remained 

 in that department of the public service for the long 

 space of forty-six years. Most of his scientific work was 

 done for the Survey, and is to be found in the official 

 maps, sections, and memoirs. It is thus, perhaps, less 

 generally known than that of some of his colleagues who 

 have published communications in the more widely circu- 

 lated scientific journals. To those, however, who can 

 appreciate accurate and artistic mapping, the work which 

 he did, more particularly among the Secondary rocks of 



